


The Devil You Know

by neierathima



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Abigail Hobbs Saves Herself, Gen, actual good therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28702098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neierathima/pseuds/neierathima
Summary: In another kitchen with another cannibal, Abigail Hobbs decides her own fate.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	The Devil You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to wanderingsilvan for the beta! Any remaining comma errors or run on sentences are either stylistic choices or my own fault, take your pick. 
> 
> This is my post Mizumono fix it fic.

When Abigail was small and first learning to hunt, her father let her meet some of the other hunters. The most interesting was a man who had survived a bear. He was missing an arm and had scars across his face. Abigail was too shy to ask him about the injuries directly, but he knew what she wanted and told her about it anyway. She remembered him saying it’s always worth fighting because sometimes you get lucky. 

~~~~~

_“Do you trust me?”_

She doesn’t mean to throw the tea.

There is something in his eyes when he hands it to her that makes her think of the big cats in the zoo pretending to be tame. Or maybe an instinct inside of her telling her that she’s the mouse and he’s the cat and eventually, he will get bored, and then she’s dinner. Literally, dinner. 

Her father loved her and hated what she made him feel. He killed both for and because of her. Abigail knows what love is, however twisted the feeling. Dr. Lecter isn’t like that. He’s like the bear they saw one time too near winter, too late in the season. An animal. No reasoning when you’re just meat. Her father taught her to know when she was in danger

Abigail doesn’t mean to throw the tea, but her father ingrained in her the instinct to pull the trigger when the time was right. 

She throws the hot tea in his face across the counter, the cup immediately after. 

She has one moment to not fuck this up. 

She grabs a knife out the block, half turning away from him. 

It’s enough time for him to get over the counter and grab at her. She turns and kicks in his grip as much as she can, swinging wildly at him with both fist and knife. She knows without knowing that she isn’t thinking anymore but she’ll fight to the death because it’s the only thing left. 

The scarf she’s using to cover the scar her father gave her is what saves her life. 

Dr. Lecter goes for the neck but he can’t get a good grip on the silky fabric and she has time to get the knife into something soft. Then again and again and again and again. 

She loses hold of time for a bit, until they are both on the floor, blood ruining another kitchen, meat hot in the pan.

Abigail backs away into the opposite side of the room still holding the knife. She watches Dr. Lecter bleed out. 

The look in his eyes when he dies is _proud_. 

~~~~~

She’s alone with his body in the silence for some time until everything happens at once. Dr Bloom comes in. She screams. Calls the police. Calls Agent Crawford. Calls Will Graham. 

Dr Bloom doesn’t understand. Agent Crawford already hates her. Will Graham gets it. When Abigail turns on him and begs him to check the meat he knows. 

They take her in an ambulance to the hospital. She’s got defensive wounds but they don’t hurt. Nothing feels as good as surviving. She’s in the hospital for days, guards outside her door. No one is allowed to see her. She doesn’t go back to Port Haven even though she’s not so badly injured. Not as badly as the first father who tried to kill her. 

Eventually Dr Bloom and Agent Crawford come back. They tested the meat. They found the basement.

They ask her questions and she gives them careful answers. About Nick Boyle, about the man on the phone the day her parents died, about meeting Hannibal, about the drugs in the tea. It’s not quite the whole truth, but Hannibal isn’t here to disprove her version of events. 

She thinks he wouldn’t mind her using him as an escape hatch. 

~~~~~

There’s arguments and lawyers and talks of guilt and responsibility and prosecution. 

In the end, they decide not to charge her with anything. Nick Boyle goes down as self defense, Hannibal gets the blame for deciding to mutilate then hide the body. Abigail suspects this resolution has a lot more to do with how it will play in the press than any belief in her innocence, either with her father’s actions or Hannibal’s, but she knows when to declare victory and go home. 

She doesn’t have a home but she’s getting the hell out of Baltimore. 

~~~~~

The last day she’s in the hospital, Freddie Lounds comes to visit her. Probably against the restrictions of the FBI or the doctors, but Abigail isn’t interested in turning anyone in.

Freddie cajoles sweetly and threatens slyly while pretending they are just girls, just friends talking. Abigail knows better now than to believe anyone is on her side. 

She has a new perspective on truth, and the importance of telling her own story and living with her own memories. She listens to the tabloid reporter give her best shot at getting something out of Abigail, then she sends her away bluntly. 

Freddie goes, but not without a last reminder that nothing stays buried forever.

~~~~~

Before she leaves the hotel they’re keeping her at they tell her she has a visitor.

Will Graham comes into the room as she’s packing and she turns to see him. She doesn’t want to but it’s important to finish what you start. Can’t shoot an animal and not make sure it’s dead.

“No offense, Mr. Graham, but I’d rather not see your face ever again.” 

He smiles that reluctant, twisted smile. Flexes his hand as if he’s going to reach for her. Then turns silently and retreats out the door. 

Abigail never does see him again, though Dr. Bloom eventually tells her he left the FBI and got medical help, moved to Maine or somewhere cold and far away. She knows he was as much a plaything of Hannibal’s as she was, probably more. She wishes him well in her mind and doesn’t think about it again. 

~~~~~

Dr Bloom (later, Alana) calls her sometimes. To check in on her and make sure she’s alright. Abigail understands she killed part of Alana’s world that day, albeit unintentionally, and that the other woman will never really forgive her for it. She can’t trust Abigail anymore, doesn’t see her as an Innocent. The first couple of years, Alana tells her things about what’s happened in Baltimore. Things that Abigail chooses not to read in the paper. She tells Alana she’s doing fine, lets her ask invasive questions. 

Eventually, she learns how to avoid those questions, and then later how to say “We aren’t going to do this anymore.” 

The calls linger for a few more years, less frequent and more impersonal, and then they too are just another thing she doesn’t have to live with anymore. 

~~~~~

She goes south and west, because she’s never been there and it’s warm, and she’s tired of the cold. Tired of scarves and secrets. Gets a job, lets the FBI help her change her name (throwing dirt over the body of the ugly past and putting pretty flowers on it’s grave), goes to community college eventually. There’s a small pay out, enough to get her started. She doesn’t ask where it comes from, doesn’t read all the piles of papers they made her sign. She got her money, she’s never going to talk about any of this to anyone. 

It takes a while, but she sees a therapist. A small, gentle woman who offers her tea but doesn’t get mad when she turns it down. She specializes in childhood trauma. She doesn’t ask probing questions, and she doesn’t try to touch Abigail when she breaks down during sessions. If she’s read any of the news reports, she never tells Abigail. It takes a while, but it helps, eventually. 

~~~~~

At 19, she has a job and her own apartment and she’s thinking about college and sometimes in the middle of the day she stands in the sunshine until her skin starts to burn and peel because it’s the only way she can feel warm. 

At 25, she has a degree and a girlfriend who doesn’t know her secrets but one day might. She tells her therapist the truth and some nights she sleeps with all the lights on and that’s ok. 

At 38, what happened when she was 17 is just the shitty part of her past. Her wife knows how to sit next to her on the bad nights and not touch her but there aren’t so many bad nights anymore. They have three spoiled dogs and she has her hands full with the students at the high school she teaches at. They have a vacation coming up for their anniversary and Abigail has the whole rest of her life to live. 

Once, she almost asked Hannibal why, and he told her “you put life in your belly and you live”. On the rare occasions she thinks of him, almost fondly, a little melancholically, she hopes wherever he went after he died, he finally learned what she has. 

Life is a table big enough for everyone, there’s no point eating alone.


End file.
